Taiwan Trip Day 8
Saturday, May 31, 2008

Taiwan Trip Day 8 - 20 May 2008

Last day of my graduation trip!!!!

Had breakfast at my favourite breakfast shop.. ordered my fav. dan bing.. hee.. *fatty*

Went to Underground Mall at their city hall to shop.. collected our pre-ordered yam tarts.

Lunch was at Dan Dan Wu (Egg House) in Xi Men Ding.. it's an adorable theme concept restaurant. The food is not bad.. the ambience is good!

Then we headed back to our hotel to collect our luggages and took a shuttle bus to the airport. Flying back. Flew back. Back on SQ 879. *Graduation Trip Memorises Sealed*

posted by Zephyr @ 11:24 PM, ,

Taiwan Trip Day 7

Taiwan Trip Day 7 - 19 May 2008

Morning - Tai2 Da4

Took a train down to Zihui's cousin's uni planning to crash their lecture. However, we were late so we ended up eating breakfast from their canteen and touring their campus. NTU stands for Nanyang Technological University.. it also stands for National Taiwan University of rather wad they call Tai2 Da4 affectionately. Anw, their canteen has a very cute name.. it's call xiao3 fu2 and xiao xiao fu (small happiness).

Behind me is the Ye Lin Da Dao. Ye is coconut, Lin is forest. Their campus is really big that everyone travels around on bicycles!!

Their pond.. with small birds and swams..

Outside their library..

Photo-taking in front of a very pretty fountain and flowers.. we are holding umbrellas because it's raining. FYI: we took this photo in the rain.. quickly take then open our umbrellas again!

Their lecture hall.. feels like NJ LTs, where we sit in rows of wooden table and chairs facing the screen.. reminiscing the good old days. Gone are the good old days.. but it feels so nice to think back. I miss those days. If given a chance to go back in time, I'll definitely treasure each and every day more.

Zihui's cousin brought us to eat dumplings at a shop near her school. It's delicious and we ate alot! Like around 8-10 dumplings each!!!! I ate 4 fried and 4 steamed and I was very very full.

Took a ke4 yun4 which is something like a bus to Jiu3 Fen4, a county on a hill. Zihui says, "The name Jiu Fen came about because last time there were 9 families living on this hill. So everytime they will send a representative down the hill to buy food and grocery and they person will ask for 9 servings (Jiu3 Fen4)."

Presenting to you the soft egg biscuit man.. Very cute hor? It's ji dan gao, gia-ping mochi inside and each ji dan gao is shaped like the man. *kawaii* The photo below shows how it's made.

In the famous Yu4 Yuan2 shop.. where there's "que que" balls of different flavours, such as green tea, sweet potato, yam, herb, etc. I personally like the sweet potato flavour.

Lao3 Jie1 (Old Street) - where the roads are narrows and shops lined both sides of the roads. The scenery on top of the mountain was really nice.. it's cold too! Mountains in taiwan are generally cold.. with strong wind. So if you are planning to go there, remember to bring a jacket! :) We walked around ourselves and bought a lot of souvenirs.. and got LOST! We were lost because we went down a very long flight of steps and can't make our way back. Luckily we saw another long flight of steps upwards and climbed all the way up and TaDa we were back at our starting point where we alighted frm the bus! So amazing! *lucky*

Night - Took another ke yun to Kee Lung County, a port county further up north. Their night market is buzzling!! We walked around for awhile before we decided to find a way to go back Taipei. It's really feels like amazing race at some point of time when we had to ask for directions and how to get from one place to another. In the end, we walked very long to their bus interchange to take a bus back to taipei county. Safe and sound. Spent the last night in Taipei Xi Men Ding Guo Guang Hotel. Zzzzz......

posted by Zephyr @ 9:57 PM, ,

Taiwan Trip Day 6

Taiwan Trip Day 6 - 18 May 2008

Long San Si - Temple where we went to see see. It's a hot day!

Mao Kong - Cable Car Ride with zihui and her cousin.. to see tea plantations.

Scenery from inside the cable car.. the whole cable car ride is about 4km.. with steep ascends and decends. Luckily the wind wasn't too strong so our car didn't shake much if not I'll be screaming like the kid in our cable car. We can even see Taipei 101 frm up there!!!

Lu Dong Bing's Temple - there's a story that says couples in love shouldn't go to this temple because they'll break up like lu dong bing's love.

Finally, the tea plantations.

After the mao kong ride, Zihui went back hotel.. so I headed off to Wu Fen Pu to meet Shuqin, Yuwen n Sammy alone. It's quite scary but also feels a lil' brave to travel alone in a country where I'm barely there for 5days. Didn't spend long at wu fen pu coz the rest were late so I waited for around 30mins.. then walk walk with them for around an hr before going back hotel. Then zihui accompanied me to shop around in Xi Men Ding.. where I managed to buy 2 tops for Dear and a nice and colourful bikini. :)

posted by Zephyr @ 2:46 PM, ,

Taiwan Trip Day 5

Taiwan Trip Day 5 - 17 May 2008

Xiao Siong Sheng Lin - a coffee cafe which we went in to take shelter frm the heavy rain outside.. A cosy place to rest and sip a cup of hot drink. :)

posted by Zephyr @ 2:23 PM, ,

Taiwan Trip Day 4
Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Taiwan Trip Day 4 - 16 May 2008

Leonard and Shawn left for singapore that evening while the rest of us took a 2hrs train to HUALIAN.

TAROKO GORGE!!!

Breathtaking scenery..

One of the Trail that we went on..

Bending over to look at the meander.. I like rocks and mountains and rivers.. especially so because I learnt about all of them in geography last time.

Cool Me!

We are surrounded by rocks!!! n mountains!!!

Check out the falling rocks.. Must be careful because of e recent seismic activity in the region.. the plates cause shifting in the mountains' rocks.. our tour guide said.

V-Shaped Valley..

Alighted frm the car for another trail.. Tunnel of Nine Turns.. This is at a higher region of the mountain range.. that's why the water flow is more rapid.

With a rock structure that they say looks like someone famous.. but i dun see it. Nonetheless, took it coz i think e view is nice.

More photos taken in the tunnel of 9 turns.. Didn't take alot of photos.. Took more videos instead.. coz I think video tells more abt the surrounding rather than just a photo.

After spending half the day travelling to hualian, half a day at Taroko, we hopped back onto the car of our ming shu's owner and head to Qi Xing Tan.

Qi1 Xing1 Tan2 - Sea with Stoney shore, instead of sandy shore. This unusual phenomenon is due to the geographic activities in the region.. the coastline is lined with mountain ranges and the rocks are from the mountains. The water is not suitable for swimming because the decend is very steep.. But lining this coast is the habitat of thousands of wildlife dolphins and whales.. and I was lucky to see 2 species of the wildlife dolphins when we went out to sea the next day. Photos will be up later because my cam died and most of the photos are taken with others cam.

Stay tuned for more PHOTOS!!!

posted by Zephyr @ 2:10 PM, ,

Taiwan Trip Day 3
Friday, May 23, 2008

Taiwan Trip Day 3 - 15 May 2008

Zhi4 You2 Kuang3 Chang3 - Freedom

Group Shot before we climbed up the long flight of steps to enter Chiang Kai Sen Memorial Hall..

Look at how small we are inside..

Random Photos taken inside Chiang Kai Sen Memorial Hall

Zihui and Me with Chiang Kai Sen statue..

Took a train down to their city hall.. Random photo-taking using a mirror we found along the way to Taipei 101..

Taipei 101.. the tallest building in taiwan. Standing tall n MAJESTIC..

My hair is flying up because it's very WINDY!!!

New York New York - Another shopping mall near Taipei 101

Took a ferry to Yu2 Ren2 Ma3 Tou2.. Before we set off, the water was calm.. Me n Yuwen.. From this photo, I look as if I got make up hor? So fair.. but I've grown darker frm the trip! (Met sheena today to pass her moshi frm tw.. asked her whether I turned darker, she says never.. but I really did.)